Saturday, August 21, 2010

Alright, most of the 2010 Allen & Ginter box rips are done and bloggers are moving on to other things, so I really need to wrap up this series of posts. When we last left off I spent a whopping $3 on a lot of 1993-94 Upper Deck SP hockey cards. Today's post consists of only two cards, but gets me much closer to my final total. These are the other two cards I won recently via Sirius Sports Auctions, a couple of 1960s Red Sox All-Star Rookie (second year) cards:

The backs of the '66 cards aren't exactly spectacular. The other card is...

1965 Topps Tony Conigliaro! This was the card in the auction that I wanted to win more than any other. In fact, if I ranked all the 50s/60s cards on my want list this would easily be in the top 20. Conigliaro's tale is a tragic one. I'm sure anyone reading this already knows the story, but Tony looked like he was becoming one of the next big stars in the game when, in 1967, he was hit in the face by a pitch from Angels pitcher Jack Hamilton. He was gone from the game for nearly a year and a half. Ultimately he made a pretty dramatic comeback but he never really regained his pre-injury level of play.

After his retirement, he was visiting Boston (he was born and raised in Massachusetts) when he suffered a heart attack at the young age of 36 years old, and slipped into a vegetative state. He remained that way for over 8 years until his death in 1990.

I'm very pleased to add both of these cards to my growing vintage Red Sox collection. They are two of the most famous and well-recognized Red Sox players from their era, along with Carl Yastrzemski.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

First of all, I would pick up any card from the 1963 Topps set in this condition for a buck, especially a Red Sox player. It is slightly off top to bottom but is well centered side to side, has sharp corners, a clean crease-free front and back and tremendous eye appeal. On top of that the awkward posed photo is great; sunny day with the crowd in the stands and what appears to be a third baseman taking grounders in the background.

I didn't even realize until I got this home that it was a high numbered card, in fact from what I have found online this appears to be part of the 6th series (cards 447 - 522) which are apparently more difficult to find in good condition.

I knew nothing about Gary when I grabbed the card, but it turns out he's a pretty interesting guy. Known for his speed, he is one of three Red Sox players to hit an inside-the-park grand slam at Fenway Park. He was also drafted as a pitcher (as evidenced by the cartoon on the back of this card), however he pitched only 2 innings (one appearance) in his Major League career.

Monday, August 16, 2010

The Upper Deck Baseball Heroes inserts have always been some of my favorites. I knew I was missing at least a few from the 1992 Ted Williams run, so I couldn't pass up the entire set of 10 for a buck. I don't have much time today so I won't bore you with my commentary. Instead, I'll let the cards do the talking:

Friday, August 13, 2010

Heading out for the night, not much time for a post. Instead, I scanned in my haul from rummaging through the quarter box at the hobby shop last night. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking:

I grabbed 5 cards from the 1994-95 Parkhurst "Missing Link" set, which is one of my all-time favorites. If you've read the blog you know how I feel about old goalie cards, so in addition to Al Rollins (which is my favorite) I grabbed two others:

The other two cards from the set were the late number "highlight" cards:

I really have to finish that set some day. Next we have some 1980's O-Pee-Chee hockey goodness. I have nearly every hockey card Topps produced from 1979 through 1990, but my O-Pee-Chee collection is seriously lacking, so I felt safe that I didn't have any of these 6. I was right:

The Kurri, Langway and Bossy are from the 1984-85 set, Fuhr and MacInnis are from 87-88, and Stevens is from 86-87.

I couldn't resist this one. I think I've said it before but I love the inserts from early 90's Fleer Ultra hockey. Not to mention, if you were an 11 year old hockey fan in 1993 like I was chances are you liked Eric Lindros.

I grabbed the only two 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee retro cards in the box. I have about 50% of the 600 card set and didn't have my want list with me, but thankfully I needed both. I'll probably never finish this one.

This might be my favorite card in the bunch. Verbeek was always one of my favorite Whalers, and this is the Electric Ice Gold parallel version of his 95-96 Upper Deck card.

I also snagged this 1997-98 Upper Deck SPX Geoff Sanderson. It's actually a die-cut card in case you couldn't tell, and the hologram scanned in very well compared to most. This is pretty cool for a quarter but I shudder to think what packs probably went for back in the day. I'm sort of glad I missed the late 90's/early 2000's period of collecting sometimes.

Also grabbed an SP baseball card of Mattingly. I'm not one of those Red Sox fans that hates the Yankees. I dislike a lot of current day Yankees, but I'll pick up Mattingly, Whitey Ford, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra cards any day.

Finally I grabbed these 9 Pinnacle McDonald's hockey cards. I had never seen these before and thought they were pretty cool. They didn't scan so well, but they use a 3D format that's very similar to the Kellogg's baseball card releases, but slightly more effective. The cards actually look very cool in person.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Today's 1953 Topps Project subject is Joe Dobson. At age 9 he lost a couple of fingers on his left hand from playing with a dynamite cap. He was a member of the Chicago White Sox from 1951 through 1953 but actually spent the bulk of his career with the Red Sox (after a brief stint in Cleveland). He was with Boston from 1941 until 1950 (with 1944 and 1945 missed due to military service), and then again to finish his career in 1954 (although he was released early on in the season).

Joe was an All-Star in 1948, however his best single season as a pitcher was probably 1947, when he went 18-8 with a 2.95 ERA. All in all he was a pretty solid starting pitcher for a few years there, amassing 137 career wins, with over 100 of them coming in a Red Sox uniform.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Time for the 5th installment of my virtual Allen & Ginter hobby box. You didn't think I would get through this whole thing without some hockey did you? Included in each pack of 1993-94 Upper Deck Series 2 hockey was one Upper Deck SP insert card. They weren't really inserts I guess so much as a separate set comprised of 180 cards, but I don't recall being able to obtain them any other way. Anyway, this set has always been a favorite of mine, and in my opinion still stands as one of the top hockey sets Upper Deck has ever released. I only had 36 of these though (one from each pack of my Series 2 hobby box) so I decided to try to grab a bunch more. Buying them individually through sites like Sportlots seemed to get expensive fast, so I went the eBay route instead and won an auction for 71 of them for a mere $3. Here are a few of my favorites from the lot:

#21 - Theoren Fleury - You've all seen the design I think, I know there was a baseball set that looked the same, and possibly even a football or basketball set as well. Full bleed photo, stripe across the bottom of the card in team color with player's name and position, then the silver foil Upper Deck SP logo in the lower right corner. The design element that the set is best known for though is the foil line that comes up the right side of the card from the SP logo, juts back down and then arcs out over the photo, with the team name written in foil above the arc. This gives the card a very classy look. I generally detest foil and prefer vintage, cardboard cards, but this is a lesson in how it can be done right.

#22 - Al MacInnis - Another thing I'd like to point out about the design is just how good a job Upper Deck did with cropping and placing it's photos in respect to that foil arc. As you read through this post, just take a look at how well they placed every single photo and really made them fit within the framework of the design. This brings the cards together well.

#23 - Joe Nieuwendyk - Upper Deck's wonderful photography is present throughout this set as well. I don't know if this was done on purpose or not, but there are quite a few cards in the set for which they chose a shot where even the advertisements on the rink boards mesh will with the player's jersey. The Yellow Pages ad on this Nieuwendyk card for example really makes the player pop out, but is also complimented by the golds and yellows on Joe's equipment/jersey.

#37 - Derian Hatcher - I like this one just because Derian is in the midst of a sea of Blackhawks, and it's a good pic of Eddie Belfour as well.

#65 - Geoff Sanderson - I had to show at least one Whaler, and Geoff was the best of the 3 I received.

#71 - Kelly Hrudey - I really don't see how you could make this card any better than it is.

#77 - Vincent Damphousse - A card where great photography and great cropping/placement come together. I really like the photo, with the ref and the Blues bench all watching from the background. The picture is cropped like all the others so that the foil arc bends nicely over Damphousse's head, and best of all they even got the floating puck in the lower right corner. You could almost flip by this in a stack without even noticing, but what a fantastic looking card.

#99 - Adam Graves - Here's another example of how Upper Deck even took background scenery into account while selecting their photos. Like the Nieuwendyk card above the boards match up nicely with the Rangers' blue and red, and the striped jerseys and red pants above the boards add to it even more.

#106 - Robert Burakovsky - I don't really know a thing about this guy, but thought it was an interesting photo.

#140 - Brendan Shanahan - The best thing about this card is the toothless, scary looking Ken Daneyko bearing down on Shanahan:

#148 - Brian Bradley - Swing...and a miss!

#153 - Denis Savard - I always forget that Savard played for Tampa Bay. Look at the determination in his face on this one!

#158 - Doug Gilmour

#161 - Greg Adams

#164 - Trevor Linden

#177 - Teemu Selanne - Another good photo where once again the board ad kind of jives with the player uniform. I can't believe this guy is still in the league (and is still an effective goal scorer too!).

Well there you have it, not too bad for $3 huh? I definitely want to finish this set. I'm more than halfway there thanks to this lot and I have about a dozen doubles to trade if anyone's interested.